Fleeing Seattle, Aeolus gleefully returning to Friday Harbor

She has been an unhappy lady stuck in this urban quagmire with no place wild to visit since August. Like a tiger in a cage, she has sulked back and forth on her keel hoping someday her owners would return her to where she could be wild and free. Well, that day is soon coming as we have decided we cannot wait any longer to move her north.

We brought Aeolus down to Bainbridge in order for me to do some labor intensive projects. With those projects nearing completion, we can finally get her back, and thus ourselves back, to the wild places and open spaces of the San Juan Islands. It has been even harder than we imagined. Being spoiled by the San Juan's, and all of British Columbia, it is simply unappealing to go anywhere down here in the mid-Sound, despite how pretty it is otherwise. It is like the difference in hiking the John Muir Trail and walking in Discovery Park in Seattle (having done both, I can compare them!).

For those few of us who have wilderness like blood in our veins, who love wilderness more than we can bear and for whom wilderness is more deeply real and intimate and ecstatic and profound than anything unnatural, for us, there is no real happiness away from wild places. And though the San Juan Islands are already over-developed, they are far more wild than anywhere south in the Sound. And their location lends itself to a sort of rugged oceanic wilderness that is also compelling. Wilder waters, currents and wildlife abound there. If we can't live full time up near Desolation Sound or north, then we can at least spend all our sailing time right up as north as we can go!

So sometime in late January we will make the two day trek on Aeolus and return her to her lovely home at the Port of Friday Harbor. It is an understatement to say we cannot wait!